Protect and Save the Historic Tryon and Lynn Communities and Hwy 108, Polk County, NC

The North Carolina DOT for Polk County has proposed to expand and enlarge Highway 108 from Columbus to Tryon in the name of improvement. The Highway 108 project for wider, faster roads is unnecessary.

Damage to Highway 108 is damage to this vibrant Community. It is called a “Highway,” but for all practical purposes it is a residential street that runs through rural residential areas used as such for decades. It is actually Lynn Road, which runs directly through the entire residential Tryon-Lynn community and connects with Highway 108. Highway 108 has an integral connection to the Registered Historic Town of Tryon, the historic Lynn Community, the surrounding historic homes and communities, and the natural flora and fauna along that route. Combined with these factors, Highway 108 has contributed to the location of an especially unique rural town, community, and culture. Highway 108 is one of the most significant scenic roads in this region.

Multiple small businesses and homes and their surrounding lands along Highway 108 will be directly affected. They will be dispossessed of their property and the opportunities to continue with their businesses, to live and work in peace, and to enjoy the tranquility of where they work and how they live. The proposed Highway 108 expansion would remove old growth trees and fields that extend along what is a beautiful, scenic drive leading from Columbus through Lynn into the Historic Town of Tryon. It would degrade the many wildlife trails that crisscross along that road, including trails for deer, bear, coyotes, and foxes. It would degrade the Tryon and Lynn Communities’ iconic old homes and B&B’s that have been here for decades. The Highway 108 proposed project will effectively abut small businesses and homes to the expanded Highway and disrupt entire Communities. The proposed changes will negatively impact an already excessive speed situation. Families, children, and retirees, along with tourists, walk, run, and bike here for precisely the rural village character for which the Tryon-Lynn Community is known and for the beauty of this road. These are just a few of the many, and varied, reasons why the undersigned oppose this project.

In short, this Highway 108 project ruins the historical character of one of rural North Carolina’s jewels. Rural towns and counties are fighting enough battles to survive without self-inflicted wounds from the State. We implore you to stop the destruction of this Community in the name of isolated traffic demands. There are other routes, other major highways, and less intrusive means to accomplish the NC DOT’s goals of expansion without disrupting the Polk County rural towns and Communities. There is enough space in our beautiful Mountain region to build roads that do not run through the middle of our quaint rural villages and destroy these very Communities that reflect the good-hearted decency of those of us who call North Carolina home.

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the Governor of North Carolina stop the proposed Highway 108 project to avoid the irreparable harm it will do to the historic Tryon-Lynn Communities. The project is unnecessary, highly detrimental to these Communities, and there are less intrusive means to accommodate perceived traffic demands with other existing routes and major highways.